I agree - my org supports customers across the US, and so many times we have to try different tricks to get equipment to work, and sometimes, nothing at all.
I work weekends shooting weddings for a studio in town. Plenty different from the day job, not the greatest pay, but challenging and fun to me.
Plus great excuse to invest in more photo gear:D
Reality though, it's taken a while for it to become profitable, but sticking to a budget along the way helps tons.
I have to argue against the pagers-being-less-reliable point.
If you go in health care, the reason a lot of doctors and on call staff are carrying pagers instead of phones is because they are more reliable. I have witnessed and been attested to by health care IT who can get zero reception in the middle of a hospital on their T-Mobile/Sprint/Verizon/Cingular phone, yet are able to reliably recieve pages. Plus, the units are cheap, last a long time on a AAA or AA, and are fairly idiot proof. <p> Also, on the salary/overtime thing, one thing to give your full time salaried folk who would be losing overtime, give them possibly something else. What we did was if they are call, we gave them paid internet access (a number upgraded from dialup, and also reduced the questions coming to our helpdesk). Those who were not on call then saw an advantage to being in the rotation, which increased the space in between people being on call.
That 5 million may not be everything they make off of that too, there might be other income they are getting off of it that could be coming from other sources. I'm only guessing, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Hey, I'm a stupid shumck who likes to work on my own cars. My Saturn, I'm happy with, I can do most of the work myself. My dad's lexus, I don't touch that with a ten foot pole.
And yes, I know how that all works. It sucks. New starter cable for a Saturn Ion? Bout $135, not installed either cause it's in your trunk. Have fun with that one.
-Better Fuel Economy -Better sound systems -Headlights that are bright but dont blind oncoming traffic -Can run past 100,000 miles without major repairs -Less rusting, even on newer cars -And finally, the ability to work on them without the need for 3 different diagnostic machines that cost 10 grand each!
Being out in the middle of nowhere does hurt for geeks. You either have dial up or nothing most of the time. Time Warner has fibre run past my house, but hasn't activated it, and from what I understand, has no plans to. Local telco has no plans to put in another CO or repeater station to get DSL out here. Only other alternative? Satellite. And with 6 second latency too.
Yes, this is suck-tastic. I don't like the idea of someone having the legal ability to go around and look at my crud.
But then again, in my accounts where they are not on a server I personally manage, I have nothing of real importance or private matter. There is a reason my company has our own private e-mail and I have my really personal stuff on my own. So, go ahead and look at what you want. You'll find a backlog of 6 months worth of spam.
Wasn't any of that really. More that when the $40,000 image server needed to be looked at by the tech from Germany, he looked at that, then at me, and then at the machine again, and said something in German I didn't understand but kinda got the meaning of it. Also, not good when the owner of the company is walking around, sees this little icon on the PC, asks what it is, and finally the manager fesses up, yea, not great things. Family owned companies. Kinda like the mafia.
Cool stuff, until I found one of our managers had installed it on all of the computers in his department. The boss is still upset about that one, although he does do it on his home PC's.
How about this, why dont we all give a little feedback on this? There is a feedback form for iTunes, and I've used it before to suggest albums, artists, and stuff like that, but why not use it now to say "hey, raise the price, lose my business." I think you get enought people, and I know there are enough/.'ers out there, it could make a decent statement.
Form:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html
Although I have not had the issue of being told that I am using too much bandwidth, my service provider did call my mother (yeah, college is expensive, so I live with the folks. Earn my rent through tech support:) at work and threaten to sue her.
Why? Because I had logged into my company's VPN to check my e-mail. Once. For maybe an hour. They told me this violated my user agreement because this was considered "business use." Now, I do not run anything out of my home, I was just on call that weekend and decided to check my e-mail for once.
Anyways, called around and around for a couple days, checked my user agreement, didnt say a word, and then finally called somebody in their legal dept, and was told that they have no such legal action pending. Don't know if it ever was true or if they got sick of me calling every day, but I'm never buying service from these guys again. Apparently, I'm not the only one, cause there are a couple pending customer action forms out on them.
Take that sub-space!
Good place to find some stuff like that is blackbox.com. They have a lot of pretty decent diagrams and layouts and such, and even some stuff on how to do the proper wiring.
When I've done this type of thing, CAT5 is the way to go, and make sure to use the same color code (placement of the wires when putting together the jacks and blocks), otherwise you could have some fun on your hands. The most common today that I have seen is the standard 568-B. You'll notice it most easily when you are wiring jacks and they have the color code on the sides most of the time, and they will say in fine print which one is which.
Also, for running new cable to locations, what I have found also sometimes (not always) works is when removing the old cable, tie to the end the new cable and a pull string (usually a nylon type string) so that if ever in the future, you can pull more or new cable much easier.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree - my org supports customers across the US, and so many times we have to try different tricks to get equipment to work, and sometimes, nothing at all.
I work weekends shooting weddings for a studio in town. Plenty different from the day job, not the greatest pay, but challenging and fun to me. :D
Plus great excuse to invest in more photo gear
Reality though, it's taken a while for it to become profitable, but sticking to a budget along the way helps tons.
And babies taste of chicken. Glad you're following me on that.
Thank you Eddie Izzard.
I believe they now call it the iNewton.
oh, i mean...
CON!!!!
If you go in health care, the reason a lot of doctors and on call staff are carrying pagers instead of phones is because they are more reliable. I have witnessed and been attested to by health care IT who can get zero reception in the middle of a hospital on their T-Mobile/Sprint/Verizon/Cingular phone, yet are able to reliably recieve pages. Plus, the units are cheap, last a long time on a AAA or AA, and are fairly idiot proof.
<p>
Also, on the salary/overtime thing, one thing to give your full time salaried folk who would be losing overtime, give them possibly something else. What we did was if they are call, we gave them paid internet access (a number upgraded from dialup, and also reduced the questions coming to our helpdesk). Those who were not on call then saw an advantage to being in the rotation, which increased the space in between people being on call.
That 5 million may not be everything they make off of that too, there might be other income they are getting off of it that could be coming from other sources. I'm only guessing, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Hey, I'm a stupid shumck who likes to work on my own cars. My Saturn, I'm happy with, I can do most of the work myself. My dad's lexus, I don't touch that with a ten foot pole. And yes, I know how that all works. It sucks. New starter cable for a Saturn Ion? Bout $135, not installed either cause it's in your trunk. Have fun with that one.
-Better Fuel Economy
-Better sound systems
-Headlights that are bright but dont blind oncoming traffic
-Can run past 100,000 miles without major repairs
-Less rusting, even on newer cars
-And finally, the ability to work on them without the need for 3 different diagnostic machines that cost 10 grand each!
Being out in the middle of nowhere does hurt for geeks. You either have dial up or nothing most of the time. Time Warner has fibre run past my house, but hasn't activated it, and from what I understand, has no plans to. Local telco has no plans to put in another CO or repeater station to get DSL out here. Only other alternative? Satellite. And with 6 second latency too.
You would be very surprised how hard it is to read a Treo on my old Simplicity.
Yes, this is suck-tastic. I don't like the idea of someone having the legal ability to go around and look at my crud.
But then again, in my accounts where they are not on a server I personally manage, I have nothing of real importance or private matter. There is a reason my company has our own private e-mail and I have my really personal stuff on my own. So, go ahead and look at what you want. You'll find a backlog of 6 months worth of spam.
Slashdotted already? Sad....
There was a Linux PPC in Waukesha, WI also for some time. Met one of the guys who ran it to after it had closed about 3 years ago? Maybe?
Wasn't any of that really. More that when the $40,000 image server needed to be looked at by the tech from Germany, he looked at that, then at me, and then at the machine again, and said something in German I didn't understand but kinda got the meaning of it. Also, not good when the owner of the company is walking around, sees this little icon on the PC, asks what it is, and finally the manager fesses up, yea, not great things. Family owned companies. Kinda like the mafia.
Cool stuff, until I found one of our managers had installed it on all of the computers in his department. The boss is still upset about that one, although he does do it on his home PC's.
How about this, why dont we all give a little feedback on this? There is a feedback form for iTunes, and I've used it before to suggest albums, artists, and stuff like that, but why not use it now to say "hey, raise the price, lose my business." I think you get enought people, and I know there are enough /.'ers out there, it could make a decent statement.
Form:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html
Although I have not had the issue of being told that I am using too much bandwidth, my service provider did call my mother (yeah, college is expensive, so I live with the folks. Earn my rent through tech support:) at work and threaten to sue her. Why? Because I had logged into my company's VPN to check my e-mail. Once. For maybe an hour. They told me this violated my user agreement because this was considered "business use." Now, I do not run anything out of my home, I was just on call that weekend and decided to check my e-mail for once. Anyways, called around and around for a couple days, checked my user agreement, didnt say a word, and then finally called somebody in their legal dept, and was told that they have no such legal action pending. Don't know if it ever was true or if they got sick of me calling every day, but I'm never buying service from these guys again. Apparently, I'm not the only one, cause there are a couple pending customer action forms out on them. Take that sub-space!
Good place to find some stuff like that is blackbox.com. They have a lot of pretty decent diagrams and layouts and such, and even some stuff on how to do the proper wiring.
When I've done this type of thing, CAT5 is the way to go, and make sure to use the same color code (placement of the wires when putting together the jacks and blocks), otherwise you could have some fun on your hands. The most common today that I have seen is the standard 568-B. You'll notice it most easily when you are wiring jacks and they have the color code on the sides most of the time, and they will say in fine print which one is which.
Also, for running new cable to locations, what I have found also sometimes (not always) works is when removing the old cable, tie to the end the new cable and a pull string (usually a nylon type string) so that if ever in the future, you can pull more or new cable much easier.